Changes to the 9th Grade Research Project

Dear Albany High School Community:

The 9th Grade Humanities team is excited to announce changes to the annual 9th grade research project.

For more than ten years, the third-quarter 9th grade research project has been a debate project, designed to showcase students’ abilities to ethically conduct research, write persuasively, speak and present effectively to a public audience, and work cooperatively as a team.

The 9th Grade Humanities team has retained all of these learning goals, but revised the project in order to better reinforce values of consensus-building and civic engagement.

Our new third-quarter 9th grade research project is now called the Forum Project. Instead of two teams debating opposite sides of a topic, the teams will now engage in a public consensus-building process around a social problem.

The Forum Project will still require students to ethically conduct research, write persuasively, speak and present effectively to a public audience, and work cooperatively as a team. Teams will still deliver both planned and extemporized statements to an audience and a panel of judges. Teams will also continue to probe assumptions and question each other.

We are already very impressed with the abilities of this year’s 9th grade class, and we look forward to working with the students on this exciting project!

The 9th Grade Humanities Team
David Blinn, English
Diane Francis, IHS and English
Sean Krazit, English
Sara Oremland, Teacher-Librarian
Jessica Park, English
Juliet Radford, IHS
Emily Surowitz, IHS
Alexia Ritchie, Principal